


Alive

by m_class



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Fix-It, Implied/Referenced Injury, Jett Reno's Wife Lives, Season 2 Episode 12 "Through the Valley of Shadows", Spoilers, Technically COULD be canon-compliant if this happens offscreen post-ep, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 06:58:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18405488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_class/pseuds/m_class
Summary: Jett is halfway inside a control panel, squinting at the wiring through the magnifier held in her left hand as she fiddles with the soldered-on staple holding the cluster of wires together with her right, when her communicator crackles, “Burnham to Reno.”





	Alive

**Author's Note:**

> Another quickly-written fix-it fic—apologies for typos! This is really just a written-out first scene from [the series of Jett’s Wife Lives headcanons](https://starfleetdoesntfirefirst.tumblr.com/post/184022946224/so-heres-what-im-thinking) I posted to Tumblr the other day. I would love to continue this at some point, but I’m not sure when I’ll have time, so I’m calling it a completed work for now! <3

Jett is halfway inside a control panel, squinting at the wiring through the magnifier held in her left hand as she fiddles with the soldered-on staple holding the cluster of wires together with her right, when her communicator crackles, “Burnham to Reno.”

She gropes among the tools on the floor outside the panel with one hand, searching for the communicator. A few seconds later, someone is placing it in her hand. Stamets, no doubt; he’s been muttering to his spore samples at the starboard workspace for the last ten minutes.

Pulling the communicator into the panel with her, Jett flips it open awkwardly in the crawlspace, holding it next to her face. “Reno here.”

“Please report to my office immediately.” Burnham’s voice fills the small space, crisp and professional as ever, with a hint of emotion that Jett can’t read.

“On my way.”

Clicking off the magnifier light, Jett wriggles her way out of the panel. “Burnham wants me immediately,” she calls to Stamets. “Can you call someone in to finish the diagnostic?”

Stamets nods, already reaching for his own communicator without so much as a smart remark. Being summoned anywhere 'immediately' on a starship is serious business, whatever that business may turn out to be; even Stamets isn’t going to be a smartass about making sure Jett’s work is covered while she’s gone.

Jett walks quickly through the halls, trying to focus on the task at hand without letting speculation run away with her. Burnham didn’t sound scared or breathless, and she called Jett to her office, not to the bridge. And then there's the notable absence of a red alert. So, at least there isn’t a shipwide crisis, although Burnham urgently summoning an engineer could always herald the beginning of a looming one.

The doors to Burnham’s office swoosh open as Jett approaches them, and she steps in.

The room is quiet. Captain Pike, Commander Burnham and Dr. Pollard are all sitting on one side of Burnham’s desk, facing her, and Burnham rises to her feet as Jett enters the room, gesturing to the chair in front of her desk.

Apprehension twists inside Jett as she pulls out the chair, the shadow of icy fear warring with the observation that all three of the other officers have serious, unreadable, but very definite _smiles_ on their faces.

Jett sits, resting her palms on her thighs, and looks across the desk at Burnham, waiting.

“Commander Reno, your wife has been rescued by a Starfleet ship near the Beta quadrant,” Burnham says without preamble. Her eyes are serious and her voice is soft. “She’s alive. She has some minor to moderate injuries, but her prognosis is very good.”

Jett blinks, staring at Burnham as words come from the other woman's mouth that aren’t real; can’t be real.

These are the words you imagine. These are not the words that come true.

She shakes her head.

_Your wife has been rescued by a Starfleet ship near the Beta quadrant._

Pike and Pollard and Burnham are all watching her, but she can’t summon up the words to speak.

_She’s alive._

Jett takes a sharp breath. “She—the station she was on exploded.” The words don’t sound like her own; they are quiet and scratchy and feel so far away. “Everyone is gone.”

Burnham dips her head in acknowledgement, explaining, still in that serious, gentle tone, “Several escape pods were launched before the explosion, all of which landed on the moon of a nearby planet. Your wife and several dozen others have been in stasis since a few days after the explosion. A Starfleet vessel doing cleanup and search and rescue in that system found them a few hours ago, and they’re being cared for on the rescuing vessel now. Your wife has some minor to moderate injuries, but her prognosis is very good,” she repeats.

Everything is sharp and numb, the faces in front of Jett impossibly sharp and close and incredibly distant at the same time. She presses her lips together, swallowing drily. “Could--This could be someone from a parallel universe. A--a Klingon like our friend Mr. Tyler; a clone; a…”

She trails off, and Burnham nods at her again, eyes still serious, with just a flicker of sad amusement in her gaze. “After serving with this crew for a few weeks, I can understand why you’re wondering.”

She glances at Pollard, who jumps in. "In the wake of the war, Starfleet Medical has implemented some very thorough protocols to verify identity. We run tests for discrepancies in brainwaves, mean cellular age, quantum resonance, and cortical structure, among others, and we have sensors and redundancies in place to guard against equipment spoofing.”

Tracy regards her seriously, her eyes matching the commitment in her words, and Jett stares blankly at her friend, nodding slowly.

“A rescue like this,” Pike adds quietly, speaking for the first time, “isn’t as unlikely as it might seem. Since the war ended, over five thousand servicemembers and civilians who were believed lost have been recovered alive. Starfleet has been running hundreds of search and rescue missions in what was enemy or unprotected territory, and dozens of those have led to successful rescues. Not to mention a few happy accidents outside of those missions,” he adds, nodding slightly at Jett, “and by ships outside of Starfleet.”

Burnham must catch Jett’s look of surprise, because she explains quietly, “The war left millions of people dead or missing, and most of them won’t be coming home.” There is a quiet gravity in her voice, and a deep well of sadness in her eyes, as she says, “Starfleet hasn’t been playing up the rescues too much to the media. They don’t want to create too much false hope.” The ebbing grief in her eyes twines together with a gleam of warmth and hope as she finishes, “But five thousand people is no small number. As Captain Pike says, this rescue is not as anomalous, or as unlikely, as the lack of media coverage might lead one to believe.”

Jett jerks her head in a nod of understanding. Everything is still so distant and close and real, all so real, not a dream, and the face of the woman she loves is everywhere in her mind, in her heart, rising to the surface like the rising sun.

“She’s really alive?” she asks quietly, her voice catching.

Burnham meets her gaze. “She’s really alive.”

“Does—do our families know?” Jett asks hoarsely.

Burnham nods. “All next of kin have been or are currently being notified, and will be sent regular updates by the attending medical staff.”

“While protocol doesn’t allow for civilian family to travel to an active Starfleet vessel, as a Starfleet servicemember, you have the ability to take a shuttle to the USS Hang Sơn Đoòng, Commander,” Pike says, adding with a warm smile, “I’ve already approved your leave.”

Jett nods jerkily, giving him a smile of thanks.

“We’ll have a shuttle ready within the hour,” Burnham says crisply, smiling. “As of our current spatial coordinates, it will be a twenty-three to twenty-four hour flight at full warp to rendezvous with the Hang Sơn Đoòng. You'll be considered a passenger, so we'll be sending two crew to cover the helm."

Tracy rises to her feet, circling around the desk toward Jett as the other two stand. “Would you like me to comm someone to meet you at your quarters to help you pack?”

 Jett, who was planning to head directly to the shuttle bay, nods in a daze. Tracy flips her communicator open as the assembled group steps out of Burnham’s office together, Jett carried along in their midst.

_Alive._

Everything feels strange, unbelievable, but far too real and detailed and _real_ to be a dream.

Jett’s dreams aren’t this optimistic, anyway.

_Alive._

Burnham smiles at her, still with that half-grief half-happiness glowing in her eyes, and suddenly Jett is grinning through the shock, a stunned, lopsided grin of pain and relief bursting across her face as the reality of the news finally sweeps into her soul like a comet hurtling through the blankness of space. The face of the woman she loves fills her mind's eye again; fills her heart; fills her soul.

She’s _alive._


End file.
